crewcrazy

Still booing Rickie Weeks? Really?

Another nice inning for Villa. Zambrano's just been wicked today, though. He's been hitting his spot almost every time...not much they could do about that. Edit: As far as playoff teams not getting blown out by last place teams, the Angels have been blown out more than a few times this year, which is why their run differential is so bad for a division leader. It happens.

Yeesh...where's the reset button? Still 4 innings to chip away at this thing, but Villa needs to get out of this with no more runs scored.

Benny can't afford to be off tonight -- he needs to be able to drop that curveball in for strikes, otherwise it'll likely be another short outing with a ton of pitches. The Cubs have shown all year that they don't swing at garbage like the Cubs of old, and we saw that last night when they weren't fooled by Sabathia's "cutter." Sheets needs to go right after them and make them beat him. It'll be interesting to see how Ned manages the bullpen tonight if it's a save situation late. You have to imagine Torres is unavailable after throwing nearly 40 pitches in the 9th last night. I'll predict a 4-3 walkoff win. http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/wink.gif

Is that really necessary? I realize it's a big rivalry, but why can't a father take his son to the game? Who's not to say that he's a Cub fan that lives in Wisconsin, and going to a Miller Park game is easier? I imagine it's extremely difficult raising a child with a disability. I know that if I was in the father's shoes, I would want to take my son to see his favorite team, too -- anything to have him experience something that he'll always remember. I'd understand if it was a few people were being jerks, because there's always bound to be some stupid fratboy who's had 12 too many mouthing off. But three rows of people constantly teasing a kid with Asberger's is disgusting behavior.

Sending Sabathia out for the 7th when he clearly didn't have it tonight was pretty dumb. Waiting until after the botched DP to take him out (with close to 130 pitches) was like letting Suppan pitch to Blum a second time yesterday. Just because you gave up Matt LaPorta for him doesn't mean you have to pitch him into the 7th inning against the Cubs when he was having a pretty rough game.

I'm probably going to need to avoid visiting here tomorrow until gametime, otherwise I'm just going to find more things to be grumpy about. I'll stick to being mad at Weeks and call it a night.

Well, tomorrow's another day. Suck it up and go get them tomorrow.

So-called Brewer fans need to stop selling their tickets online to Cubs fans -- that's the real problem. The key to beating Marmol is laying off the crap out of the zone. Unfortunately, Bill Hall, Mike Cameron, and Jason Kendall hit this inning.

Nice effort there, Hall.

Hardy, Braun, and Branyan have been pretty composed tonight. It's Weeks' error and Torres' inability to throw strikes that's killing the Brewers tonight.

That's got to be one of the hardest balls Kendall's hit all year. Still nothing against Lilly, though...all these first or second pitch popouts are getting annoying.

Well this start kinda sucks. http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/frown.gif Hopefully Sabathia can get out of it only down 1, but he's been getting knocked around pretty good so far.

Yeah, it seems to me both sides are preparing for the worst. Hopefully the Brewers can get to Lilly early and take the momentum from there. They say momentum is only as good as your starting pitcher the next day, but the Brewers have a couple pretty good starters going the next couple days. http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/smile.gif

Corey Hart was just on ESPNEWS' "Hot List" to preview the start of the series. Pretty good interview that covered most of the bases when it comes to the Brewers. They talked about the addition of Sabathia since he's pitching tonight, the team's recent hot streak despite hitting something like .170 with RISP, Ryan Braun's hot streak, and his experiences in the All-Star Game. Corey's dry sense of humor came out again...when they asked how the team was doing so well despite not getting "clutch" hitting with RISP, Corey responded by saying "Well, we have this guy named Ryan Braun...you might've heard about him...he likes to help us out."

I'm incredibly pumped for this series, but incredibly nervous at the same time...it feels a lot like the start of that Cardinals series to me. Hopefully they can get a win out of the way tonight so I don't spend the rest of the series worrying about getting swept. http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/wink.gif

I believe that HBP came in St. Louis, after Braun hit a solo HR in the 9th to push the Brewers lead to 3-0. It was Prince's second HBP in that game and he kind of smiled after it happened, which made it seem like he knew it was "retaliation" for Braun's solo HR. Of course, Ryan retaliated back a day later in the 9th inning. http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/wink.gif Edit: While Prince's production this year has been a little disappointing, I still wouldn't say he's having a bad year. I know Prince has always prided himself on being more than just a power hitter, but I don't think he'll ever really consistently be around .300, which is fine since he's gotten much better at taking walks when pitchers want to pitch around him (although he could still improve -- he gets himself out too many times for my liking). He'll probably hover around .275-.280 most years like he is now, with a few years like last year when he flirts with .290. His slugging is definitely down, but it'd be crazy to expect him to slug .618 like he did last year again. Right now he's hovering around his rookie production through the same amount of games, but like ILuvDaBush said, he really fell off when he hit the rookie wall. I think he'll be much more consistent down the stretch run this year, and he'll end up with some pretty nice numbers. I do agree, though, that he doesn't seem to be taking too kindly to being "#1-B" compared to Braun's "#1-A". Ryan really came out of nowhere to steal Prince's thunder, both in terms of on-field production and off-field fan adoration. Even when Prince was in the process of hitting 50 HR last year, I'd argue that more people were excited about the crazy numbers Braun was putting up in his first season, given his late start.

The funny thing is the majority of the Cubs fan base is just about thinking the same thing. We're two tortured fanbases that are just waiting for the worst to happen.

Where the heck was that last inning, Suppan?

Still can't hit with RISP. What are the odds refuses to talk about Suppan's implosion in the post-game press conference, but instead throws everyone else under the bus by saying something like "We just couldn't score enough runs today, we missed some plays in the field we should've made, etc."?

Looks like both the Cubs and the Brewers got caught with their pants down looking ahead a bit, doesn't it?

Hey look, a pitcher is clearly getting rocked and Cecil Cooper -- a guy who's been getting roasted by the Houston media for most of the season -- has enough common sense to take him out of the game even though he's leading 8-4 and there's only 1 out in the 5th inning.

Getting a run back here would be therapeutic. How about a leadoff HR, Brauny?

7-run inning. Sometimes all you can do is laugh. You know it's bad when even Bill Schroeder can't believe Suppan is still out there.

The next 2.5 years of Suppan should be fun...ugh. He's probably my least favorite Brewer. Just get out of this down by 1, please.